Technology and automotive supplier Magna showcased its latest radar technology, which incorporates advanced technology used by the United States military that provides precise detection, extensive range and higher resiliency.

The ‘Icon Radar’ unveiled at the North American International Auto Show (NAIAS), is a high-definition icon radar that continuously scans the environment in four dimensions (distance, height, depth and speed) in range of 300 metres. The company claims the new tech can detect and track almost 100 times more objects compared to existing products, and can also individually classify them.

Magna has been collaborating with Uhnder, a technology start-up currently in stealth mode, in engineering and product development to help bring this technology to market by 2019. It says the Icon Radar will help close the gap between level 3 and level 5 autonomous-tech and help achieve full reliable autonomous driving.

The radar detects and communicates with the vehicle providing it with a rich topography of static objects such as guard rails, road debris and speed bumps, as well as a large number of tracked moving objects such as vehicles, bi-cyclists, pedestrians and pets.

Magna states that having the ability to distinguish smaller ‘objects’ such as children and bicyclists in close proximity to larger, more easily detectable things such as parked cars and moving trucks is critical to the enhancement of safety ADAS features such as Automatic Emergency Braking and to further the progress toward full autonomous driving. It is this critical data and capability that keeps the software systems with information to continually improve vehicle intelligence and safety systems.

"Magna has identified some of the world's most advanced technologies and 'auto-qualified' them for use in the auto industry," said Swamy Kotagiri, Magna chief technology officer. "Our Icon Radar takes the best of military technology and improves on it for automotive use – taking a significant step forward toward full autonomy."

The company claims that the Icon Radar continuously scans its full environment 50 times faster than the time it takes a human to blink an eye, which helps a vehicle to make instantaneous decisions in response to the complex surroundings. It can detect vehicles at distances that well exceed any current requirements. Its state-of-the art imaging capability pulls from 192 virtual receivers incorporated into a single compact system. These virtual receivers are applied to deliver both horizontal and vertical resolution, achieving new benchmark levels for each. In addition, the technology is naturally immune to interference, which will become critical as the number of radar-enhanced vehicles on the road increases.

It further says that with its compact size, the new technology will also allow greater flexibility in exterior design that can be easily integrated into an automakers autonomous system or as part of Magna's MAX4 autonomous vehicle platform.